


You Could Go Away, Today

by 12wantyou



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, At least at the start, Developing Friendships, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Internet Friends Jae and Young K, OT5 Friendship, Young K-centric, more tags to be added along the way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24506461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12wantyou/pseuds/12wantyou
Summary: Younghyun is lostJae is recklessSungjin is determinedWonpil is lonelyDowoon is afraid...How Day6 was formed, in an alternate universe
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is kind of an au about Day6's beginnings. Some details are taken from reality, but the story itself is a complete work of fiction. I don't own Day6. The title is from Gerard Way's song, 'Television all the time'.
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

Younghyun shivered as he hit upload on his cover of SNSD's Run Devil Run, which he had filmed last week. It was Tuesday, and he'd spent all day at home (mainly in bed) trying to hold down what little food he'd eaten and sleeping. He sat now, still in bed, propped up on two pillows behind him with his laptop settled on his duvet-covered lap.

At around 5 am that morning, he’d thrown up and somehow managed to miserably shuffle back to bed, despite feeling like he was about to collapse, only to wake up later with a horrific stomach ache.

‘Food poisoning,’ his mum had announced. 

Last night, one of their neighbours had brought some kind of stew over after a dinner party. Hungry after getting by on just snacks since lunchtime, Younghyun had eagerly helped himself to most of it. Unfortunately, it’d left him grumbling and clutching his stomach most of the day. He felt bad for her guests.

It was early evening now, and he was starting to feel a little better. And he’d managed to get something done, at least, by uploading his video. Since summer vacation had started, laziness had officially taken over. It was hard to do homework and hobbies during school days when you had no time, but Younghyun had found that with more free time he’d become just as much more unproductive. Once he’d started easing into the slump, he’d just accepted it instead of climbing back up. There was stress piling up in the back of his mind somewhere, but he chose to ignore it.

Up until now, the only thing that he’d really enjoyed was making his covers, especially the ones together with his friends. He liked playing guitar, and he liked singing, plus he’d seen lots of positive comments on their videos so far. It felt good to know that they had an audience, that there were people who liked what they were doing. When his friend, Terry, had first started the channel, he’d seen a comment saying his voice was ‘AMAZING :o’ and had spent the whole day thinking about it. He’d kind of felt like, as Terry put it, ‘a giggly schoolgirl with a crush,’ and Younghyun hadn’t corrected him. He hadn’t been able to focus at school that entire day, he just wanted to get home and see what else people thought. 

Terry had started the channel about a year ago, just for him, Don and Younghyun to post their musical mishmashes, but just last April they’d signed up to Battle of the Bands at school with a few more of their friends- another guitarist and a drummer had made them feel like a real band. Somehow, they’d managed to get second place, and it was still so surreal to think about, at least for Younghyun. The feeling he got performing on a stage, even just at school was amazing. He’d never felt that way before.

He checked the account activity now, seeing a new comment had been left. ‘Nice! Can’t wait for the next one ^_^’ -yellowpostitman. Younghyun smiled and thumbed up the comment. Once the video was live, he closed the tab and the laptop lid and straightened up his back. Feeling a little better, he moped down to the kitchen to hunt for food, starting by scouring the fridge, and found a glass containing what looked to be a banana smoothie. Thanking the universe for his mum, he sat down at the dining table and took a long sip, followed by a grimace as he felt his cheeks freeze. It had probably been there since this morning when she left for work. 

‘Fuck,’ he mumbled, just as his mum walked into the room. She raised her eyebrows, amused, shutting the front door behind her.

‘I’ll take it you’re feeling better then,’ she said.

‘I guess.’

‘Well you don’t look as pale as you did this morning. What did you do all day?’

‘Nothing.’ Younghyun watched as she set her coat down over the back of a chair.

‘Well, could you at least make me a cup of tea? I’m exhausted.’ She went over to the sink and filled a glass with water.

‘Yup.’ He drained the rest of his smoothie and walked over to the kettle. Filling it with water, he set it back down and flicked the switch.

Younghyun looked over at his mum. She was 47 now, and his dad was almost 50. Being their only kid, he knew they expected big of him, and even if somehow, they didn’t, he knew that for their sake, he expected himself to make his existence something worthwhile, so that they didn’t have to grow old and see him mess up. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and they weren’t young anymore. 

_Why couldn’t I have gotten a passion for medicine or law or something?_ He thought. It would be the safest and most stable route.

Thoughts like these ones were what kept him up at night, kept him distracted at school, at his friends’ houses, made him kick off his covers when it was freezing outside. All that he’d ever really hoped for was to be _good_ at something. 

He went over to his mum and rubbed his face on her shoulder.

‘Hey, what are you, a cat?’ She shrugged him off.

‘Yep. Meow.’ He clung to her arm. ‘I wish I was twelve again and had messed around more.’

She ruffled her son’s hair. ‘You messed around enough. Too much, in my opinion.’

‘Well, I won’t have time to mess around this year.’

‘So don’t,’ his mum instructed. ‘It’s your last year. If there was ever a time to work hard for what you want, it’s now.’

  
She was right, Younghyun knew. But how do you work hard for it if you don’t know what _it_ is?


	2. Chapter 2

‘Back to hell,’ Don muttered as they walked through the gates.

Younghyun gave his friend an affectionate nudge. ‘Just one more year,’ He reassured. The last time they’d met up was a couple of weeks ago when they were filming at his house. It had just been the two of them, since Terry was in China pretty much the entire Summer. 

Terry walked next to them now, prattling on about seeing his grandparents and all the things he’d done.

‘Sounds like you had a lot of fun,’ Don sighed. ‘I was carrying boxes and shit while you were having the time of your life. We still haven’t finished unpacking yet and my room’s chaos.’ Don had moved house recently- which was one of the reasons Younghyun hadn’t really seen him much over the Summer. Plus he’d been having driving lessons.

‘At least you were productive,’ Younghyun mumbled. It was sort of depressing that his friends had been doing actual _things_ and all he’d done was mope about and botch his way through not even half of his homework. His teachers weren’t going to be pleased.

‘I feel like I've missed out on everything happening here though,’ Terry continued. ‘Feel like you guys have been having a good time without me.’

‘You literally didn’t miss anything. I left the house, like, twice.’ Younghyun said.

‘If you count having a good time as going to the mall and waiting to play DDR for an hour, then giving up, getting Burger King and calling it a day, then yeah, we had a great time.’ Don added.

\---

Business turned out to be one of the classes he actually did homework, albeit terribly, for. Not surprisingly, half the class had ‘forgotten it at home,’ so Mr Alvi decided he’d take it in the next lesson. On the downside, he ended up giving them a pop quiz on the stuff they covered at the end of last year, to see who’d actually bothered to open up their textbook over the Summer.

The class groaned, but for Younghyun a Business quiz sounded way better than a lesson where he actually had to pay attention. He wasn’t in the mood to focus, and he’d always been pretty good at the subject. Bullshitting his way through the test would probably still give him a satisfactory score.

The rest of the lesson was fine; they ended up discussing current events until the bell for second period rang. By lunch time, Younghyun felt like he never left school, like summer break hadn’t happened. 

He watched Don across from him as he picked the seeds from the core of his apple, flicking them onto the table.

‘The festival’s not just for our school, guys. It’s gonna be a bunch of them. Think about all the people watching.’ Terry was talking about the Fall School Festival and suggesting they play. It was something that their school did every year, mostly organised by the younger classes, but everyone was welcome. There was always some badly scripted play (last year’s had been ‘Modern Romeo and Juliet') (it had been crap), snack stalls selling way too much for the amount that people were buying and, the one that Younghyun found the most questionable, ‘Teacher’s basketball.’ Like, why in the fuck would you want to watch a bunch of your teachers running around sweating after a ball- which they _cannot_ dribble, by the way. 

‘I’d be down, but are we gonna be allowed to?’ Younghyun asked. ‘There were no bands playing last year. Or the year before that.’

‘We’d be allowed if we asked, probably.’ Don wiped a seed off onto Terry’s shoulder next to him. ‘But we’d have to set up everything ourselves. They’re not gonna go out of their way to get a fucking stage and arrange all the mics and equipment just for us.’

‘We can use the pantomime stage.’ Terry offered, flicking the seed back at Don. It hit him right between the eyebrows. ‘We can do the equipment, it’s not so complicated. We’re not Queen playing Wembley for fucks sake.’ Younghyun raised his eyebrow at Don who munched the rest of the apple core, dropping the stalk onto the table.

‘You weirdo, Don, what the hell.’

\----

The end of the day had Younghyun feeling drained like he’d been at school all week, as opposed to six hours. He usually walked home with this kid in math who lived on his street, but it seemed like he wasn’t back yet from Cyprus or wherever the fuck he went on holiday, so it was just him today. Tugging off his jumper and stuffing it into his bag, Younghyun walked past the gates and decided to take his time on the way home. ‘Just about 170 days or so left,’ he thought to himself, miserably.

Summer always had a way of making it feel as if the whole world had stopped for two months. The days were so long and you had more time to do anything than you'd had all year. Younghyun remembered making lists at the start of summers when he was younger. With all the things he wanted to do. Movies to watch, plans to make with friends, what days in the final week to do his homework… 

He hadn't bothered making a list since he was 15. 

The past two years he'd done fuck all over vacation. It wasn't that he didn't have things to do, it was that he didn't want to do them, even the fun things. 'When did I stop playing basketball?' he thought to himself. 'And why?' 

And when had 'fun' started to feel like a chore?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say sorry for the wait, but I'm pretty sure everyone who read the first two chapters has forgotten this story's existence lmao. 
> 
> Anyway please enjoy!

‘Good news Bribri.’ Younghun tore his locker door open and turned to see who was about to piss him off even further. It was Terry. Of course. 

‘We’re playing at the festival!’ He said excitedly. The cheesy grin didn't leave his face as he noticed his friend’s grumpy expression. ‘Ha. Nice scarf.’ Dick.

'Shut up. My mom made me wear it.' As soon as the weather had dropped to, like, one degree lower than usual, Younghyun’s parents had been ushering him to start wearing a scarf and gloves to school. Obviously because they didn’t want him getting sick again, but he wasn’t even cold! It didn’t help that the only scarf he happened to have was a piss-yellow monstrosity that was so long it dragged on the floor behind him. 

‘Mm, ugly,’ Terry decided. He tugged lightly on one end of the scarf. ‘Don’t be so sulky. We get to perform!’ Younghyun peeled the thick material from his neck.

It was pretty great, he had to agree. Last week they had been going to the teachers in charge asking if they could pretty please have a time slot to perform during the festival, that they would take care of all the setting up and practice hard to make it good. The teachers were reasonably ok with it, but had mentioned that they should probably ask the festival organisation committee, because it was the students running it, really. Ah, that explained why he’d seen Terry kissing up to tenth-graders recently.

‘The kid in charge, he was a little shit,’ Terry declared. ‘Like, bro, you’re fifteen, know your place. I swear every year they get worse. Ruder. And shorter.’ His sour expression made Younghyun laugh.

‘We should probably start practicing soon, then. Show that guy.’

‘We’ll steal the show.’

\---

That night, Younghyun spent a good three hours playing through songs on his guitar trying to decide which ones would be best. He was left with a list of nine songs, which he’d have to whittle down because they only had a twenty-minute time slot on stage.

He finally came downstairs to the kitchen at half nine, to see his dad cooking dinner. Younghyun didn’t even hear him come home. It was normal for them to eat kinda late since everyone in his family went to bed at ungodly hours of the morning. Younghyun’s dad looked up from the stir-fry as he walked in. 

‘I knew the smell would coax you out of your room,’ he smiled. Younghyun’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten since he got back home from school.

‘Yup, can’t work hard on an empty stomach.’

\---

Practice started straight away. They spent every lunch time the following week in the music classroom, working on adding songs the others suggested, cutting down the list to a top five, and organising which parts would be sung by who. By the end of the week, they had pretty much sorted out their final list, and distributed all the parts out. 

They met up at Terry's house after school on Friday to actually go through the performance as a whole, calling it the 'first draft'. 

'You guys should sing a duet,' Terry suggested. He was trying to get inspiration from some of the comments on their videos. 'People seem to like that. Shit. There are people in LA watching us.'

'No way,' Younghyun peered at the computer screen over his friend's shoulder. 'Supporting from LA! -yellowpostitman.' Younghyun recognised the username. 'Do people in LA really have the time to be watching  _ our  _ videos on YouTube? Shouldn't they be like throwing beach parties and drinking kale smoothies or something?'

'Guess not.'

'You idiots. Is that all you think they do in LA?' Don rolled his eyes, lightly smacking the back of Younghyun’s head. 

Younghyun didn’t say anything. When he thought of LA all that came to mind was rich people and Hollywood. He guessed he hadn’t given much thought to the ‘normal’ people living there. Kids walking home from school like them, worrying about finals, drowning in homework.  _ It is a little stupid to think everyone’s a movie star or a model, _ he thought.

‘There are losers like us everywhere, Brian.’ Don quipped. ‘Even in LA.’ 

‘Speak for yourself,’ Terry said. ‘ _ I’m _ not a loser. And they don’t have to be a loser to like our videos.’

Don snorted. But Younghyun knew they both agreed with Terry. This was the biggest thing they’d all done so far in their eighteen years alive. He remembered the first song he’d played all the way through on his guitar when he was fifteen and how excited he’d been. He’d read that you could play it with just three chords. So he played it. He played it non-stop for a week, to his parents, his friends, whoever would listen. He’d been running after that feeling like a madman for almost three years. Minus the feeling that came afterwards when Terry clowned him for being basic.

‘I can’t believe you learnt Chasing Cars.’ He’d sounded disappointed. 

Younghyun looked to Terry now.

‘Well, we had to start somewhere,’ he said, picking up Terry’s guitar. ‘And losers or not, there are people liking us!’ 

Terry snatched his guitar back. ‘That was beautiful, Brian. But I don’t remember telling you that you could touch Jos é .’

Younghyun sneered at him. 'Jos é was happy to be free of your icky fingers.' He stuck his tongue out, childishly. Terry kicked his shin. 

'Stop messing around, you guys. We've been here an hour already and haven't done anything we were supposed to.' Don interrupted. He picked up the list of songs they were performing. Younghyun had managed to cut it down to about five songs, but throughout the week they'd ended up adding more and more, and were now at the point where they were struggling to take any of them off. 'How about…' Don started. He looked at the piece of paper thoughtfully. 'We do some sort of mash up?' 

Younghyun had thought about it too. 'It's not a bad idea. Until you realise Owl City and Avril Lavigne don't exactly transition into each other very well.' He said

'It doesn't matter. We're gonna be using the same instruments. And singing in our own style. It'll work.'

'I'm in.' Terry agreed. 'Brian?' 

Younghyun grinned. 'Let's not waste anymore time, then.' 

\---

'yellowpostitman' turned out to be a boy around Younghyun's age, with a slight puff in his cheeks and thick looking glasses. He seemed like a quiet kid, Younghyun decided, unlike his friends. 

Younghyun was wrapped under his duvet and the lights were off, as he lay on his stomach, laptop on his pillow, squinting through the dark to watch each video. Once he’d brushed his teeth that night, he decided he wanted to do some research of his own on yellowpostitman. 

His channel was full of video covers, the first one from 2009, and the latest one from just a week ago. Younghyun stayed up for almost an hour just to watch all the videos, and by the end he’d concluded that he really liked the guy’s voice, and that he was a pretty good guitarist- _better than me, at least_. He wondered if yellowpostitman had taken part in any school festivals. He thought he probably should. Maybe he had his own high school band.

Younghyun clicked the ‘subscribe’ button. LA was probably a good place to get noticed, he thought. One day, this kid might be famous and Younghyun could say he was there from the start. 


	4. Chapter 4

Fingers hovering over the keyboard, Younghyun nervously bounced his right leg up and down. He'd been doing this for about ten minutes now- typing a reply, backspacing, then sliding his chair back to think. 

Earlier that morning, he'd sent a tweet to none other than 'yellowpostitman', or as he'd now come to learn his name, 'Jae'.  _ 'Hey, thanks for all the support on our videos!' _ is what it had read. He hadn’t even really expected a response, a short thanks at most, maybe. He definitely hadn’t expected this. 

'No problem man, you guys are great. We should talk sometime?' 

Now, he sat at his dad's computer, spinning in the office chair trying to decide if that was an invitation to make a move or not.  _ I should introduce myself. Wait, no, he already knows who I am, duh. And my name.  _ It was in his Twitter handle. What confused Younghyun was the fact that he said he wanted to  _ talk _ . Like properly? Of course, Younghyun wanted to talk. He had to admit, he'd stalked this guy and was pretty interested. But  _ how  _ should he say it was the question. 

He didn't know how to respond without sounding low-key creepy. He stared at his current draft and groaned. _'I'd love to know more about you.'_ _Ugh, I sound like a predator._

A few attempts later, Younghyun had decided on 'That would be great. Do you have windows messenger?' It sounded the most normal, and he was continuing the conversation. There was a chance that the boy didn't actually want to talk to him, and had just said it to be polite. But Younghyun had already sent it by the time he'd thought of that possibility. 

_ Let's see what happens.  _

He thought it was a little odd that he was so nervous. It wasn’t like he had just tweeted Beyonce, but it was still so weird to acknowledge that he was talking to this person that he had come to admire and that they seemed to be a fan of him, too. He was anxious for the response.

Once he’d fried his brain overthinking, he turned off the computer and walked back to his bedroom, where his guitar lay on the floor surrounded by pieces of paper and textbooks. The pitiful remnants from when he’d attempted to do his homework earlier. There was no desk in Younghyun’s room, which didn’t exactly help in promoting productivity, and besides, he’d been too worked up to do anything since he’d gotten home and seen that tweet. Walking over to the mess in the middle, he lazily plucked at the guitar strings with his bare toes. 

The day of the festival was tomorrow. Younghyun and his friends had been practising every day since they’d received permission to perform, and now, finally, they’d be able to. Strangely, he hadn’t felt nervous at all the past two weeks. Just excited that so many people were going to be watching them. But now, the night before, he was feeling jittery and restless. He wasn’t exactly a shy person, and he’d done the talent show last year- that had been good.  _ What if I make a mistake?  _ He thought.  _ What if I have a coughing fit, or I need to sneeze.  _ He wondered how professional singers did it. 

He wouldn’t be thinking about any of this if it hadn’t been for earlier that week when they were in the music room and he’d completely forgotten his lyrics. Just blanked. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been paying attention- if anything he was giving his all to focus. 

‘Try not to think too hard on it,’ Don had suggested.

‘What do you mean? Won’t that be worse?’

‘I don’t think so. You’ve heard this song so many times, you already know what comes next. Maybe you’re more likely to remember if you just go with the flow.’ Younghyun wasn’t sure about that, but he figured he may as well try it out.

*******

‘Everyone ready?’

Younghyun nodded behind his water bottle. He’d managed to finish the whole thing whilst they’d been sat waiting. A couple of drops dripped down his chin.

‘Hey, slow down, this isn’t the last time you’ll be able to drink water,’ Terry teased. Younghyun smiled nervously as he wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve. They’d spent the last fifteen minutes warming up the best they could. He’d been running through the performance in his head whilst everyone was tuning instruments and checking mics. He wasn’t super-nervous, he’d just felt awkward sitting there with nothing to do, so he’d kind of just constantly sipped at his water.

‘I’m going to the washroom,’ Don announced. He’d been fixing his hair half this time, but you wouldn’t be able to tell- it looked exactly the fucking same.

‘Take Brian with you, we don’t want him having an accident on stage,’ Terry ruffled his head and Younghyun retaliated by swatting his hand away. He was right though.  _ Imagine if I piss myself on stage. _

‘I don’t know, it might make our performance more memorable.’

‘We’re K- _ MESS _ not K- _ PISS _ .’

‘Pee on the crowd to assert dominance.’

‘Guys, shut up about piss.’ Younghyun groaned, shaking his leg up and down. He had just realised how desperate he was for the washroom. ‘Come on, Don!’ he called, dashing out of the room.

*******

The show ended up going a lot better than any of them were expecting, Younghyun was quite sure. There was a big crowd of kids watching them, and he didn't end up forgetting any of his lyrics, which kept him confident throughout the performance. When Younghyun let down his guard a bit and looked at the audience’s faces, they all seemed to be enjoying his singing and were singing along as well. 

By the time their twenty minutes of fame were up, they were all a lot more relaxed than they had been at the beginning, and walked off the stage, satisfied and smug. 

‘Honestly, could have been worse,’ Don stated, as he held out his palm to Younghyun for a high-five. 

‘And no pissing,’ Younghyun added, returning the gesture. ‘Well done guys.’ He shifted from foot to foot, feeling restless after performing in front of so many people. He happily took charge of tidying the equipment away, eager to get rid of his overwhelming energy. 

Once they were done, Terry suggested they go look around at the other activities being held. He led the way through the piles of kids seeing what was going on. Younghyun spotted a cupcake stall and his eyes widened. He began weaving his way around students to get there. Don and Terry sighed but followed him. They were actually all pretty hungry. 

‘All the money’s going to charity, so you don’t have to feel guilty, buy as many as you like!’ The girl behind the stall informed them. Younghyun was already tugging a note out of his wallet. 

‘Two each, guys? We’ll take six then,’ he said, handing the girl the money. ‘Gotta save room for those samosas we saw.’ Just thinking about the fried pastries made his mouth water, and his stomach rumbled eagerly. 

They didn't manage to reach the samosas though, because once they turned their backs on the cupcake stall, a tall, heavily tattooed man blocked their way. 

‘Uh,’ Don started.

‘You guys are that band that just played.’ The man spoke. ‘I watched it.’

‘Yeah… that was us…’

‘You guys done any other public performances?’

‘Not really. No.’ The boys exchanged nervous glances.

‘Nice. How’d you like to open for Bosco Wong?’

Before anyone else could open their mouth, Terry had spoken.

‘Seriously? Hell yes!’ Younghyun was still trying to process the last minute of conversation, but to top it all off, he had no idea who Bosco Wong was. He tried to shoot a quizzical look at Don, but his friend looked just as confused. 

‘When? And where?’ He asked. He figured he should probably keep the confusion to himself.

The man handed him a leaflet. ‘All the details are on here. It’s a little short notice, but the original openers cancelled, so we were kinda desperate. You guys are cool though!’ He reassured. ‘There’s a number on there you can call and everything if you make up your minds or have any questions.’ It was kind of shady how the man had approached them at school, and they didn't even know his name. But the leaflet seemed legit. 

‘We’ll think it over, yeah.’ Said Don.

‘Nice. See ya guys later.’ The guy stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and turned around. As he walked away, Youngyun gave the leaflet a once-over. 

‘Wow, it really is short notice. Next week! And it finishes at midnight.’ He wasn’t even sure his parents would let him out that late. 

‘We’re opening though, so we don’t have to stay that late.’ Don said.

‘Come on guys,’ Terry spoke. ‘Yes, we do need to stay that late. To watch the rest of the show!’ He seemed a lot more excited about Bosco than the opportunity to perform. 

‘Ok, fine. We’ll think it over,’ Younghyun decided. Not that they really had much thinking time. ‘What about, like, homework and stuff? I’m already behind thanks to our festival prep.’ He really was. He’d been copying science homework off of his classmates for a few weeks now and was starting to feel bad. 

‘It’s ok, we’ll make a timetable or something. Study time and practice time,’ Terry said. 

‘What about videogame time?’ Don pouted. 

  
‘No.  _ No _ videogame time.’ Seeing Don’s face, Terry ruffled his hair. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to play videogames afterwards.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I have a lot of time to write lately, so hopefully, the next chapter won't be such a long wait away (and be better in quality!). 
> 
> Thank you for reading! x


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